Multi-disc albums

[J. Allen Crider]

I hadn't thought about using Import File Audio Metadata, but I'll have 
to check it out when I get a chance.  I had already entered a lot of CDs 
into Tellico before I decided to rip all of them (after I began to 
realize how many 20-30 year old discs I had that wouldn't play anymore), 
so right now I am primarily ripping CDs that I had already entered in 
Tellico.  But as I return to ripping CDs at the same time I add them to 
Tellico, I'll give that a try.  Thanks.

Allen

On 10/15/21 1:59 AM, Jared wrote:
> Ha, I was about to reply back with a comment about not knowing that 
> there even was a Import Audio CD Data option.  You beat me to it. :-)  
> But your previous comments make much more sense in that context.
> 
> So yeah, your process is different than mine in I've already ripped my 
> CDs, so I'm just focused on the cataloging.  I generally use the update 
> method you described since I'm starting from a CSV import of all my 
> albums.  Unfortunately, the matching is... not great.  For the albums 
> where I get a choice I can pick a good one, but it'll often match on a 
> cassette tape or DVD or international version or just something crazy 
> like that, so I need to do a fair amount of massaging as I go.  I think 
> starting from a search rather than an update may ultimately save time, 
> as at least that's more likely to give me a selection of items to choose 
> from, whereas update usually chooses for me.
> 
> I also switched from musicbrainz to discogs after our last exchange - I 
> /maybe/ get better matches with discogs (neither are great), but I like 
> that discogs adds a link back to that specific release in discogs.  
> Handy for future reference.
> 
> One last thing - have you noticed the Import File Audio Metadata 
> option?  I just noticed that while looking up the CD option.  If you 
> have your rips well tagged, that seems to reliably add the album with 
> the correct title, artist, genre, year, and track names/artist/length.  
> May help solve that problem you described with k3b and tellico returning 
> different results.  The thing I don't like about the metadata import is 
> that it messes up my CD collection template - adds a bunch of fields I 
> don't want to /all/ items in the collection.  I need to try playing 
> around with that a bit more and see if I can control that template - if 
> so, this may end up being the speediest solution, as all I'd really need 
> to do then would be to search discogs through my browser and copy over 
> the few additional bits of info that I need.  Will still require manual 
> work on every album, but at least I can be confident that the tracks and 
> album metadata will always be correct.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jared
> 
> On 10/14/21 10:44 PM, J. Allen Crider wrote:
>> Two other comments in addition to my last reply.  I just realized that 
>> you may not have found the "Import Audio CD Data..." option in Tellico 
>> (it took me a little time to find it also).  Use File->Import->Import 
>> Audio CD Data...  Because I use it so much, I have added it to the 
>> toolbar so it is easier to find.
>>
>> Your reply caused me to try something I've never tried before.  I 
>> created a new entry with only the title, medium, and artist.  Then I 
>> did an Update Entry on it.  I still get a server timeout if I attempt 
>> to update from MusicBrainz, but for my test case, an update from 
>> Discogs did fill in the rest of the information.  It remains to be 
>> seen how often that process might work for the rest of my collection 
>> (I've only entered about half of my CDs so far and none of my LPs).
>>
>> Allen
>>
>> On 10/11/21 5:43 PM, Jared wrote:
>>> Thanks for the reply!  I thought about creating them as separate 
>>> entries per disc, but I really don't like that approach - I'm 
>>> cataloging my music albums, not my individual CDs, so I'd rather keep 
>>> them grouped as one entry per album.
>>>
>>> I'm similarly importing the data for the most part (easy to generate 
>>> a CSV file by listing all the album directories to a file and tacking 
>>> on stuff like medium), and use musicbrainz to populate the tracks and 
>>> album art.
>>>
>>> I like the idea about noting multiple discs and adding comments for 
>>> which tracks belong to which discs.  Not ideal, but probably the best 
>>> way to work around that issue.  Very much appreciate the suggestion - 
>>> will likely start doing that myself.
>>>
>>> I didn't follow your comment about merging discs, though.  If you 
>>> have to resort to manually creating the disc, which implies you're 
>>> manually filling out the track lists for both albums, why do that as 
>>> two separate albums and merge rather than just creating as a single 
>>> album?  I tried doing that myself to see if maybe that was some way 
>>> to "trick" tellico into maintaining two tracklists, but it just 
>>> merges it into one long tracklist, so I'm not seeing what the 
>>> benefit.  I'm sure I'm just missing something.  No big deal either 
>>> way, just curious about your process.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Jared
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/9/21 9:58 AM, J. Allen Crider wrote:
>>>> I haven't found any way to do what I think you are suggesting, but I 
>>>> haven't looked.  If you wanted to list each disc as a separate album 
>>>> in Tellico, I can think of at least two options.
>>>> 1) You could duplicate the entry for however many disc are in the 
>>>> album.  Then change the title of each entry to add the disc number, 
>>>> and remove the tracks from the other disc(s).
>>>> 2) Rather than using Musicbrainz, you could use "Import Audio CD 
>>>> Data..." to import one disc at a time.  Then you would have a 
>>>> separate entry for each disc.
>>>>
>>>> I have a similar problem, but I've chosen a different approach. If I 
>>>> can find the album using "Internet Search...", I use that and simply 
>>>> add a comment that tells how many discs are in the set. But I have a 
>>>> lot of albums that I can't find using "Internet Search...", so I use 
>>>> "Import Audio CD Data..." most of the time. I then insert blank rows 
>>>> at the beginning of the track listing for the second disc (and any 
>>>> subsequent discs), and then merge the entries.  I can then add the 
>>>> comment about the number of discs in the merged entry.  If you 
>>>> wanted to add more information to the comment, you could include 
>>>> which tracks are on which disc (e.g. disc 1: tracks 1-12; disc 2: 
>>>> tracks 13-20, or something similar; that is probably something I 
>>>> should have done but I didn't think of it earlier).  One reason I've 
>>>> taken the approach I have is that I am also ripping most of my 
>>>> collection as I add them to Tellico (using K3b) and I rip all discs 
>>>> in a set to the same directory and then use Kid3 to change the track 
>>>> numbers and file names so that it will be easier to play the entire 
>>>> album in the correct order.
>>>>
>>>> Allen Crider
>>>>
>>>> On 10/8/21 9:37 PM, Jared Breland wrote:
>>>>> Hello.  I'm currently working on cataloging my music CDs, using 
>>>>> musicbrainz as the source.  I have a lot of multi-disc albums, 
>>>>> which musicbrainz seems to recognize and split out, but Tellico 
>>>>> lists them only as a single album.  Ie., a 2-disc album with 12 and 
>>>>> 8 tracks each is just listed as 20 tracks in Tellico.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm guessing this is working as intended because I can see how 
>>>>> Tellico would be limited to a single Tracks table, but still wanted 
>>>>> to confirm before i get to far - is there any way to make Tellico 
>>>>> split out each disc into a separate track list?
>>>>>
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Jared
>>>
>>
>